Systems and methods for interacting with computing devices are diverse. Over time the ways in which people interact with computing devices has changed, from simple touch based interaction such as keyboard and mouse, to gesture based vision systems.
Fundamentally, human-computer interaction remains the same however. Information is shown on a display and the user enacts an interaction to manipulate the information. This can range from controlling a computer game, to creating a text document, to simply reading information. However, the steps of the interaction remain the same: (1) show information, (2) perform an interaction based on the information, and (3) change the displayed information.
This presents a problem that an interaction is required even for the most mundane of tasks. Take for example a notification on the main screen of an operating system, perhaps a displayed notification of a new message, email, or the like. Currently there are two ways to interact with such a notification, either performing an interaction such as a mouse click to remove the notification, or the notification may disappear after a pre-determined period of time.
Both these methods present problems. Firstly, performing an interaction requires effort and may distract from whatever task the user is currently performing. Secondly, dismissing the notification after a predetermined period of time provides no guarantee that the user actually saw and understood the notification. Thus, the notification may disappear without the user having read it.
Therefore, there exist problems with existing systems which would be ameliorated or overcome by a solution that provides a convenient way of acknowledging information as being seen, without significantly impacting a user's current task.
Further, in present systems there are sometimes enhanced or magnified views of information on the display (often referred to as magnified windows). These enhanced views may obscure other information on the display, and as such are only suitable as temporarily displayed items. Requiring that a user click elsewhere or somehow otherwise physically interact is a common way to dismiss a magnified window. This however requires a physical step from the user and if the user's intended next task is in the area of the screen upon which the magnified window was placed, performing a physical step elsewhere may be counter-intuitive.
Therefore, there exist problems with dismissing magnified windows and other displayed objects in conventional systems. Embodiments of the present invention provide solutions to these and other problems.